Messaging, such as provided by the Java™ Message Service, involves loosely coupled peer-to-peer communication between software components and/or application programs executing on one or more computing devices. The software components and/or application programs, sometimes referred to as message service clients, can send messages to or receive messages from any other message service client via a message service server (also referred to as a messaging provider). The messaging provider often stores the messages in a queue. In order for message service clients to communicate, the sender and receiver may not require any information about the other (including such details as operating system and network interfaces) and/or be available at the same time. The sender and receiver may rather be configured to communicate with the messaging service server, or be configured to communicate with the proper message format and include information about where to send messages and/or receive messages (i.e., the queue). The Java™ Message Service provides an application programming interface that defines a common set of interfaces and associated semantics that allow software components and/or application programs written in the Java™ programming language to communicate with a Java™ Message Service server.
A file system (such as the NTFS file system or the ZFS file system) includes mechanisms for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain. Generally, file systems often utilize a data storage medium, such as a hard disk or CD-ROM, and maintain the physical location of the files. File systems also oftentimes provide access to data on a file server by acting as clients for a network protocol (such as the Network File System protocol or the Server Message Block protocol) or involve virtual file systems and exist as an access method for virtual data.
Software components and/or application programs interact with a file system via a file system driver of the operating system of the computing device the software components and/or application programs are executing upon, by issuing one or more file system calls (such as a read file call, a write file call, a delete file call, and etc.) to the file system. Some application programs, particularly legacy applications, may exchange data in the form of files. These application programs may not be inherently capable of communicating via messages. Updating these applications to utilize messaging often requires considerable investment in terms of time and money, and the conversion may not be without risk. Further, application programs for administering message service servers may be proprietary, complex to utilize, and differ greatly.